


Cold Blooded Old Times

by Ursula



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-08-31
Updated: 2001-08-31
Packaged: 2018-11-20 09:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11332677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ursula/pseuds/Ursula
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Cold Blooded Old Times

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Cold Blooded Old Times By Ursula

Title: Cold Blooded Old Times  
Author/pseudonym: Ursula  
Fandom: X Files  
Pairing: Mulder/ Krycek  
Rating: R  
Status: Complete  
Archive: Anywhere, as a complete story. If you have a constructive critique and/or wish to use a portion, contact me directly.  
E-mail address for feedback: or   
Series/Sequel: Is this story part of a series: No  
Other websites: My page at RATB, thanks to Ned & Leny: http://www.squidge.org/terma/ursula/ursula.htm  
Disclaimers: Carter invented them. I love them. Who wins?  
Time Frame: Before the Beginning and after the End of the Krycek arc  
Note: The story was written for the lyric wheel from lyrics provided by Shahara Zade. The story refers to physical abuse of a child. The story contains violence. 

* * *

Cold Blooded Old Times  
By Ursula

It wasn't Samantha. 

For years, I had blamed myself for her abduction, and when I took the guilt for that it was easy to believe that her disappearance and my inadequacy had resulted in my parent's separation and later divorce. It wasn't until I left to find myself that I remembered. My mother and I had driven to spend the weekend with my aunt. Halfway there, my mother called to let her sister know that we were going to be late. One of my cousins had come down with the chicken pox. I had never had them and my mother didn't think this was the time for me to change that. It was the last weekend of summer before school started.

When we arrived home, I remember running in front of mother to use the bathroom. I ran in the door and stopped dead in my tracks. I heard sobbing, a hopeless sound, and then a sharp crack of flesh against flesh from my parent's room. For some reason, I believed Samantha had been found and flung open the door. Inside I saw my father shaking a disheveled little boy. As he looked up at me, the boy jetted out of his grip and thudded into me; his grimy self, hitting my middle with such force that my bladder nearly exploded right there. The kid clung to me, babbling in a language I didn't understand.

Mother followed behind and she screamed, "Bill, I told you never to bring your work home. How could you?"

The boy was forgotten as my mother slammed the door behind her. I was left with a little kid with big tears streaming down his face. I had to go to the bathroom so I dislodged him and firmly shut the door in his face. When I came out, he was curled in a ball under the dining room table. When I tried to coax him out, I realized he smelled as badly as he did because he had wet his pants. My parents were still yelling at each other so I did what I'd always done with Samantha. I took care of him. 

Funny to think of me as a good, older brother, but I was. I teased her. I played jokes on her, but I loved her. I loved her more than I loved anyone at that point in my life. It never seemed as if either mom or dad had the time for either of us. Mom had her social life and dad had his work, important government work. Samantha and I mostly had each other.

The boy didn't speak English, but I pointed at myself and said, "Fox."

A spout of the gibberish greeted me in return. I patiently tried it again, "Fox", I repeated.

Finally, he understood and pointed at himself. "Sasha," he said.

The kid was cute, little snub nose, big green eyes, long eyelashes, clumped together by tears, and a mouth like that of a china doll. He was a little younger than Samantha had been, but not young enough to excuse his accident. I supposed he was scared. I saw that one side of his face wore dark bruises and I knew that they were too old to be from the slap I had heard. I had never met an abused child. Ignoring the memory of the sound and sight of my father shaking this boy, I tried to believe that my father had rescued the kid.

Grabbing his hand, I led him into the bathroom and undressed him. He surprised me by cooperating. I turned on the shower for him and went to find something for him to wear. Mom gave all my outgrown clothes to charity, but I knew that she hadn't done anything with Samantha's. Tears stung my eyes as I found a sweat suit that didn't look too girly. It was blue and plain. I think she used it for a warm-up for the ballet class mom made her take, although she hated ballet. She never liked all the frilly clothes Mom bought her either.

Sasha was out of the shower when I came back with the clothing. He was shaking as I handed him a big towel. All the time I was wondering who he was. I had the idea that he was someone else's Samantha and I didn't at all like thinking that my dad might do something like that.

I could hear from the yelling that I was right. My Dad shouted, "Do you want them to take Fox too? Well, do you?" 

A sick feeling made my stomach feel like lead, but I tried to hide it for the kid's sake. I quickly made him a sandwich while I decided what to do. I handed it to him and then I knew what to do. I was going to take him to the police station.

We were half a mile down the road when my parents caught up with us. My mother's face looked grey. Her eyes were as wild as they had been when she came home the night Samantha disappeared.

"This never happened, Fox," she said in a thin and high voice. "You didn't see the boy. You didn't see anything. We didn't see a thing."

"No, Mom, it isn't right," I said, my arm protectively around Sasha.

Dad looked dead. His face was so expressionless that he scared me as badly as he frightened the poor boy I was trying to help. He said, "Get in the car, Fox, I'll explain everything."

Dad didn't though. He locked me in my room with Sasha, who was terrified and kept trying to tell me something. I couldn't understand him, but I tried to let him know that I wanted to help him. Maybe somewhere, someone else was taking care of Samantha for me. 

I thought about breaking my windows, but I knew the trouble I would be in if I did that and I was still kid enough to believe that it would be all right. I hugged Sasha and rocked him to sleep...

"Hush, little squirrel, hush," I said. It was my pet name for Samantha. She pretended to hate it, but I know she really didn't. When she had nightmares, I'd hug her like that and call her my little squirrel and she would call me moose. Sasha fell sleep in my arms and slept cuddled up to me like a puppy. 

In the morning, there were strange men in the living room. They wore gray suits, black sunglasses, and wooden expressions. Mr. Spender was there too. He was a close friend of my parents, but I never liked him. I hated the way he acted toward my father, the mocking way he would put him down with a tone of voice or a casual order to do something. Worse yet, I hated with a passion the proprietary way he had toward my mother. I didn't want to believe she returned his affections, but it worried me that she said nothing, didn't reprove him.

The men took Sasha out of the house. I tried to help him fight them, but Dad held onto me as I screamed and kicked. I swore at him too. For that moment, I hated him as completely as a child can hate. It wasn't just Sasha, whom I hardly knew. It was the knowledge that it was dad's fault that my sister had been taken. It was suspecting there were monsters in the world that resided within us instead of under the bed.

I believe what happened next was that I was hypnotized, made to forget everything. All I recalled for years afterwards was my father loading his belongings in the car and the look on his face as he saw me watching from the window. I remember him turning beet red with rage and he slammed the gate on his way out. It rattled as if it might break. The tires squealed as he spun going around the corner. I thought he was furious with me because of Samantha, but now, I suppose it was fury at being found out. 

Here I am.

Damn clever of me.

Clever to remember. Clever to wonder. 

I can see the expression on your face as I stand here laughing with the man who redefined your body. Redefined your soul. The man who took you from your family as a hostage or a pawn. I wonder if they experimented on you too. I'll have to ask you later.

What were you thinking to walk away without being sure? You should have driven a stake right through that black hole of a heart and incinerated the ashes. 

It took me a while to figure it out...to sort through the layers of scars I called memories. It all came back to me. Everything they took from me except you.

You must have thought me callous when I didn't recall your name, but I remember it now. Smiling, I turned to Spender and said, "Even trade, Mr. Spender. Even trade. I'll walk away and leave Scully and her child in exchange for what's left of Krycek."

I laughed again at his expression and said, "Revenge is like a powerful drug, sir. You gave a taste to Skinner, but I didn't get my shot. He lost an arm the last time he went on a trip with me. Let's see what I can do about the other important body parts this time."

"Mulder, you expect me to believe that of you? Mulder, the shining white knight?" Spender asked. He looked better than he had the last time I saw him...not bad at all for a dead man or a man that Krycek told Skinner he had killed.

"That was before he sold me to the aliens," I said. "Do you have any idea what that was like?"

Perhaps he did, but I'm sure it was second hand. He shakily lit a cigarette, nodded, and said, "If that's all you want, take him. Just don't leave the body where it would cause problems for me."

Nodding, I walked over and looked down at the thin, wretched creature lying on that cement floor. His one hand was chained to the wall. I saw his eyes meet mine and he said, "Mulder..."

"Shut up," I said. Then low, too low for Spender to hear, I whispered, "Sasha..."

I was close enough to notice that Alex smelled fouler than he did the first time I met him. He was going to need a bath and some medical attention, but I could see to that later.

"I'll disappear, Mr. Spender. No one will be looking for me this time. I've said my good-byes. My career is washed up. I won't be missed," I said. I'm sure my eyes looked dead enough to persuade him, but it was not for the reason he thought. When I remembered why Alex always seemed familiar, I realized that my father had not died the day he was shot. Spender had been killing him by inches since before I was born. Maybe the last day he was really alive was the day Samantha had been abducted.

It took me weeks to process my feelings. I went from rage to regret to acceptance. I remembered the visions I had when I nearly died after Scully shot me. I want to believe that he really appeared to me. That the words of comfort meant that he had found peace, but I also realized I had to forgive Alex. If I was to continue to hold my grudge against him then how could I accept what my father had done to Alex? 

Once Spender had given me the key, I unlocked Alex's hand, wincing at the gouges that I saw on the wrist. Roughly, I jerked him to his feet. As we passed Spender, he grabbed Alex's hair and said, "You were never worth the trouble I took to train you. You always had a weakness despite the efforts I spent on trying to beat it out of you. Oh, you showed promise when you finally had the balls to try to kill me, but you couldn't even do that correctly. You're a fuck-up, Alex. A fool. "

Spender spat in Alex's face; despite his weakness, Alex lunged at him.

"None of that," I reproved. I smiled at Spender again and said, "You win, Spender. That was what you always wanted to hear. I just have to settle one old score and I'm ready to move on."

Pulling Alex behind me, like a battered doll, by the empty link of my FBI handcuffs, I walked down the steps of the cottage. Settling my prize in his seat, I turned back to look at Spender's lair. Alex coughed and held up his wrist, "Reminds me of old times," he said. His voice was raspy, worn thin with screams. He slumped back in the seat and asked, "You gonna kill me now?"

"No," I said. "I'm just finishing something I started to do many years ago. I promised to help you and now I have."

"You can't really leave Scully to him," Krycek whispered.

Which of us had suffered worse from Spender's actions? Damned if I knew. I held up the remote when we were the exact distance to be safe yet for the signal to carry. 

"We'll do this together," I said, holding up the remote. His eyes grew wider. 

"Mulder? Can I feel your neck?" Alex asked.

"Sure, but I'm the real thing," I replied.

His hand massaged my neck, confirming that the lump was not there. I grinned and said, "What did you say? Send the devil back to hell? Squirrel, you need remedial supervision from a former FBI special agent so you learn how to finish a job once you start it. Let's do it," I said.

There was a moment of cold-blooded clarity. It was murder. I suppose it was my cherry. Even righteous Dana had lost hers when she killed Donnie Pfaster. I hovered on the cusp until Alex's hand covered mine. Our eyes locked as we pressed the button.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then there was a whoosh as the walls blew inward. I remembered all those lessons on explosives exactly. I believe I surpassed my usual poor mechanical skills. 

Alex stared at me with wide eyes. I smiled at him and said, "Good enough for you?"

"I can die happy," he said.

"Or live?" I asked.

"What about your father?" Alex asked.

"What happened to your family, Alex? How was my father involved in kidnapping you?" I asked.

The big, green eyes grew wider and his lips pressed together in that odd prim way he had when he was holding something back.

Softly, I said, "We'll leave it behind, Sasha. It's all in the past...those cold-blooded old times."

The dawn was a faint sliver of red on the horizon when I pulled up to a motel. Alex waited in the car as I checked into the room. He was half-asleep when I opened the car door. Despite his condition, I kissed his forehead then delicately tilted up his chin to kiss his tender lips. "I saved you, Sasha."

"In some cultures that means I belong to you," he replied.

Taking his hand, I helped him out of the seat. I said, "Why don't we start a new custom? Save a life and you belong to each other."

Alex's smile was brighter than dawn. 

No more cold.

                     

The Lyrics By Smog

Cold-blooded old times

the type of memories  
that turn your bones  
turn your bones to glass

and though you were  
just a little squirrel  
you understood every word

and in this way  
they gave you clarity  
a cold-blooded clarity

Cold-blooded old times  
Cold-blooded old times  
Cold-blooded old times

though how can I stand  
and laugh with the man  
who redefined your body?

How can i stand  
and laugh with the man  
who redefined your body?

Those cold-blooded old times  
cold-blooded old times  
cold-blooded old times

  
Archived: August 29, 2001 


End file.
